Garment bags adapted to be folded and carried have been available for some time. Many of these bags, such as those illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,139,164 of Koffler and U.S. Pat. No. 3,221,848 of O'Neil, are made of rigid or semi-rigid shells that are connected together with a flexible folding portion. These types of bags are adapted to be hung from a closet door or the like upon being unfolded to provide access to articles of clothing stored therein. Rigid shell type garment bags, such as those disclosed in the above listed patents, serve little, if any, purpose after clothing and accessories have been removed from them. In addition, they tend to be heavy and bulky which makes them difficult to carry and to manage. This is a particular problem for the modern woman traveler who desires a lighter and more easily handled garment bag.
Flexible folding garment bags are illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,244,453 of Herz and U.S. Pat. No. 3,115,959 of Jaffe. The Herz patent discloses a flexible garment bag adapted to be folded in the middle. It has a removable pouch for containing accessories which hangs from a conventional hanger within the garment bag. When this bag is unfolded and the clothes and pouch therein removed, the bag serves no further purpose. Articles carried in the bag must be removed and packed into drawers upon arrival and removed from the drawers and repacked into the bag upon departure.
The Jaffe patent discloses a garment bag having a front and rear compartment. While this garment bag is foldable, and has a handle provided for carrying, it can only be hung from a door or the like via the hangers on which the garments within the bag are hanging, the tops of which protrude from a hole provided in the top of the bag. After the garments and hangers are removed, the bag of Jaffe serves little purpose for temporary storage and access. In addition, hanging articles of clothing are stored for carrying in the front compartment while accessories such as neckties and shoes are stored in the rear compartment in flexible pouches. Access to the rear compartment is gained by unzipping a flap along the top and sides of the bag so that the flap falls out of the way revealing the interior of the rear compartment. Since there is no means of stowing the flap when it has been unzipped, it often falls to the floor where it may be stepped on or otherwise get in the way or even lost. In addition, if the bag is hanging with the front compartment accessible, a user who wishes to access the rear compartment must turn the bag around and rehang it.
These limitations of garment bags of the Jaffe type make them difficult to use for temporary storage. Articles transported in this type of bag must normally be removed from the bag, hung in closets or placed in chests of drawers, and the bag put away until time to repack it, at which time articles are removed from the drawers and repacked back in the bag. As any frequent traveler well knows, this is a tedious and time consuming task.
The problems associated with the prior art garment bags discussed above ar even more pronounced for the modern woman traveler. The woman traveler generally carries many more small articles than a man such as lingerie, shoes, and makeup. The process of unpacking these articles upon arrival at a hotel or motel and repacking them upon departure, necessitated by the prior art types of garment bags, is a particular burden for them. The more heavy and bulky the bag, the more difficult it is to handle, particularly for women.
Accordingly, it is to the provision of a garment bag that overcomes these problems and limitations that the present invention is primarily directed.